Yunior García Aguilera is a Cuban actor, playwright, and activist, founder of Trébol Teatro and the Facebook group Archipiélago. He was born in Holguín, Cuba in 1982.
His long and solid theater career began when he was only in fourth grade, writing and acting alongside his classmates. In his hometown of Holguín, he joined the Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS), which allowed him to gain experience and publish his works. He took on the artistic direction of the theater company Alas Buenas, whose play, Sangre, won seven awards at the National Small Format Festival in Santa Clara.
At the age of 17, he entered the National School of Art (ENA), specializing in acting. In 2003, he founded the Trébol Teatro project alongside young actors who graduated from ENA, aiming to create a unique dialogue and a creative, innovative space. That same year, he completed his studies at the ISA (Higher Institute of Art) as an actor, graduating with honors.
He has written scripts for television and film. Pig (Fiction short film made in 2018) was showcased at the 40th edition of the Latin American Film Festival.
Yunior was one of the key figures of the November 27, 2020 (27N) protests that took place in front of the Ministry of Culture (MINCULT), organized by a group of artists, intellectuals, activists, and the general public in response to the events that occurred at the San Isidro Movement's headquarters the night before. On November 26, the police evicted the young people who had taken refuge in that location in order to demand the government release the rapper Denis Solís González. Some had also been on a hunger strike for several days.
From this peaceful demonstration, a group was democratically elected to meet with the Deputy Minister of Culture, Fernando Rojas, and other government representatives. The goal was to engage in dialogue in order to reach agreements that would respect creative freedoms, expression, and press, as well as to put an end to the repression of artists whose work diverges from the official narrative established by the Cuban regime. Yunior was part of the group along with Katherine Bisquet, Tania Bruguera, Camila Acosta, and others.
The playwright made headlines again following the events that took place in Cuba on July 11, 2021 (11J), when people across the island spontaneously took to the streets in a historic demonstration against living conditions, government mismanagement, and the lack of freedoms. They were peacefully protesting alongside other young artists outside the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television when they were violently forced into a garbage truck by State Security agents.
He was subsequently transferred to the Vivac prison in Arroyo Naranjo and released days later under a precautionary measure that prevented him from leaving his home. From his house, García Aguilera became one of the most visible faces of this social upheaval. He gave interviews to numerous international media outlets and television, in which he defended the Cuban people's right to build a different country while denouncing the violent repression that led to several disappearances and the unjust imprisonment of more than 600 protesters.
In July 2021, the Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez
García Aguilera defines himself as “a civic artist who wants to build a better country where his son can stand up for his beliefs without being beaten in the street and where he can think freely without having to emigrate.” He does not consider himself a politician but rather as “a citizen championing ideas who seeks to transform his reality and advocates for horizontal leadership, based on consensus, where collective intelligence prevails and where power and decisions do not rest with a single figure.”*(1)
On August 9, 2021, Archipiélago was created, a Facebook group that has more than 23,000 followers and aims to give voice to all Cubans who want to build a new Cuba without excluding the exile or the diaspora, while also setting concrete goals for this construction.
Those objectives are:
1. Fight for the liberation of all individuals who were detained on July 11, 2021.
2. Attempt to hold the first peaceful anti-government demonstration authorized with all legal guarantees, free from repression or violent incidents.
3. Convene a plebiscite with all the guarantees protected by the 2019 constitution that allows the sovereign will of the Cuban people to be decided at the polls.
In September 2021, Archipiélago requested authorization from the Government to hold a march against violence in Havana on November 20. In the following days, other provinces of the island submitted this request to their respective Provincial Government offices, thus joining the call.
Like other activists, Yunior has been besieged in his own home, preventing him from moving freely. He has been interrogated several times by State Security officials and is a victim of daily harassment by the repressive forces, even being under surveillance by as many as eight agents at the same time.
On October 4, 2021, the Center for Studies on the Rule of Law, Cuba Próxima, announced the addition of the playwright to its Deliberative Council.
Source:
(1) and (2) taken from Proyecto Archipiélago, interview with Mónica Baró, August 13, 2021, 23yFlagler
